


An Intimate History of Neo-Humanity

by Prochytes



Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-22
Updated: 2011-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the course of one Wednesday during Season One, Rhys Williams (transport manager and Special Ops Widow) explores what it means to be human in the Twenty-First Century.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Intimate History of Neo-Humanity

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 1x11: "Combat". All chapter headings are taken from Theodore Zeldin’s "An Intimate History of Humanity". Originally written for LJ in 2008.

Introduction: The Silences of a Policewoman

 

Even before he prised his eyelids free from the Sandman’s Wednesday special delivery of cement, Rhys knew that this was one of Those Mornings.

 

Once in a rare while, mutual sleepiness worked a special magic. He would stand in the kitchen, a contentedly drowsy demiurge overseeing the genesis of breakfast, while Gwen flitted around the flat, somehow making the process of putting her work clothes on look as sexy as the Dance of the Seven Veils. More usually, they both staggered around in a vague companionable haze, exchanging bleary pleasantries as they ricocheted off each other.

 

And then there were mornings like this. The ones when the flat entertained an unwelcome visitor: the Secret. Their failure to acknowledge it only made its presence more palpable. Rhys sometimes thought of it as an elderly visiting relative settled, querulous and flatulent, on the best armchair.

 

Gwen was already on the move, hurriedly dropping keys into her hand-bag. The fall of black hair obscured her face as she scurried across the room - a bad sign. Nothing announced the presence of the Secret like Gwen using her locks as a riot shield against his attention.

 

“Tough day ahead at work, love?”

 

“Mmm.” Mobile snatched from the dresser; mobile pocketed.

 

“Mine’s going to be a right bugger. That new software’s on the fritz.”

 

“Mmm.” Desultory dab of lip-balm; glance in mirror.

 

“I told Gareth it was a crock of shite, but he never listens. I’m a prophet in his own cubicle.”

 

“Mmm.” Coat snagged from its hook. In the background, the local radio channel that was always on in the mornings despite their mutual lack of interest soliloquized tinnily:

 

 _Reopening of the Mayoral Apartments has been postponed. The Apartments, closed since 2006, had been scheduled for…_

 

“Look after yourself, anyway. Love you.”

 

“Mmm.” Warm lips on his cheek; the door opening and shutting.

  

The Secret snuggled down into its chair, and looked set for the day.

 

 

1\. Why there has been more progress in cooking than in sex 

 

They had rearranged the food aisles again. Rhys knew that supermarkets had good reason for this exercise, which made the punters look at new things. It was still bloody annoying to the individual consumer, though, especially one who needed to get back to the office before the end of lunch break.

 

Rhys had not had a fulfilling morning. The ongoing failure of the new Pegasus software to do anything other than crash spectacularly when you looked at it funny had finally impelled him to contact an outside I. T. specialist, a nice guy in London whose judgment had turned out to be very reliable in the past. Rhys had therefore felt fully vindicated when his description of the symptoms down the telephone elicited a sympathetic splutter from the other end.

 

“Oh God, they’re not making you use Pegasus, are they? It’s awful.”

 

“You’re preaching to the choir, Alan old son. Do you happen to know of any alternatives? We have an I. T. overhaul on the cards next month; if I get a proposal for a change in pronto, I _might_ be able to swing it.”

 

“Well, your sort of operation should really be looking at something like Easytime. I’ll send you some relevant links tomorrow.”

 

“Cheers; you’re a life-saver.”

 

“I would get them off today, but I have to dash. My daughter’s school play is on this afternoon.”

 

“No problem. Hope the play goes well. Bet she’ll do you and the missus proud.”

 

“Well, Maria’s mum and I aren’t together any more, actually. But Chrissie’s said that she’ll try to make it to the performance too.”

 

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Anyway, thanks a lot!”

 

“My pleasure.”

 

His _faux pas_ had rankled a little with Rhys. More and more these days he envied people with reliable relationship radar. Gwen seemed to absorb people’s Facebook profiles just by talking to them.

 

His mood had worsened when Gareth told him that the Information Resources Review had been brought forward. This meant that Agenda Items now needed tabling by start of business on Thursday. With Alan no longer answering his phone, Rhys knew that if he was to beat tomorrow’s deadline, he would have to find another source for the Killer Facts needed to despatch Pegasus to its overdue appointment at the Knacker’s Yard.

 

None had sprung to mind. Retail therapy in his lunch hour had therefore seemed the way forward. Apart from the usual supplies, he was planning a new culinary experiment – escalopes of salmon with champagne and chive sauce – and needed to shop for ingredients.

 

Rhys would have been hard put to it to define why he liked cooking so much. He enjoyed eating, true enough. And his cooking made Gwen happy, which brought with it certain perquisites. A happy Gwen tended to find ways to share her happiness, especially if she was the tiniest bit tipsy to boot (he dropped another bottle into the basket).

 

But that was not the whole story. Sometimes he thought of cookery as an extra place that he had built for himself, a place apart from “Mr. Williams at the office” but not swallowed up in “Rhys & Gwen”. It was like giving your soul a loft conversion.

 

Of course, the opening up of the gastronomic world since his childhood was also a factor (he added some naan to the shopping and went hunting for the soy sauce). Whatever the larger consequences of the planet becoming a smaller place over the last few decades, the full palette of human possibilities was certainly more accessible from South Wales than once it had been. Back in the 80s, balsamic vinegar (he took some off the shelf) might as well have been Château Mouton Rothschild for the likelihood of seeing it. Now you could have China in your hand, and India in your bread basket.

 

A brave new world. A brave new world where, unfortunately, it was bloody hard to find the sunflower oil. Rhys looked around in increasing bafflement.

 

“Lost something?”

 

Rhys turned to see a tall, neatly turned-out young man in a suit and tie standing behind him.

 

“The sunflower oil. Do you work here?”

 

“No.” Now Rhys looked more closely, he could see that that the man was holding a basket too. It contained eight large bottles of malt vinegar. “But I know my way around. Far shelf, next to the preserves.”

 

“Cheers.”

 

“No problem.” A ring tone started. Rhys reached instinctively for his pocket, until the man pulled out his own mobile and started talking into it. He heard the clear voice fading into the distance behind him as he headed for the preserves: “Yes, there should be enough now, sir.” A pause. “The thought is much appreciated, sir, but I believe it would be frowned upon as unhygienic, particularly in such close proximity to the prepared meats…”

 

Rhys shook his head. Proper slave-drivers some people’s bosses were. Even during lunch-breaks, they had to be cracking the whip.

 

 

2\. How men and women have slowly learned to have interesting conversations

 

“… and shows how Waterhouse tends to feel kind of empty when he doesn’t have a problem to solve. It’s a really cool piece of characterization.”

 

Across the room, Keith and Amy, who had been flirting since _The Catcher in the Rye_ and (Rhys was privately convinced) shagging since half-way through _What Maisie Knew_ , nudged one another and giggled. The speaker flushed, and hurried on:

 

“Anyway, next slide. Now, I’m certain you were all as impressed as I was by the bit where Waterhouse meets Turing and doesn’t know who he is…”

 

Rhys did not share this certainty. It was hard to be impressed by something you had not actually read. And several of those present were wearing the half-hunted, half-defiant look of people trying to smuggle rather more ignorance about _Cryptonomicon_ into the room than strict Book Club etiquette allowed.

 

Rhys had been attending the Club for a few months now. It had initially been a response to the restless drive towards self-improvement which had taken Gwen some time before she was seconded to Special Ops: going on courses, gaining skills, learning languages. A lot of this had been more aspirational than efficacious, of course. Gwen was many things, but a natural linguist she was not: her larynx could do to French culture what it had taken seven thousand longbows to achieve at Cressy.

 

Some of this had rubbed off on Rhys, all the same. He had started to worry a bit about getting flabby in his faculties, about letting his mind succumb to middle-aged spread. You went to school, maybe to Uni as well, but somewhere along the line, a lot of what had been in your head silted out. Forcing the old neurons to pull their weight again had to be a good thing.

 

This in mind, he had joined the Book Club. It had been set up under the auspices of the University of East Cardiff, and the more hard-core of the participants were actually using it as credit for a part-time Masters in English Literature. Before Rhys had joined, the group had apparently cut their teeth on the usual Victorian suspects: _Jane Eyre_ ; _A Tale of Two Cities_ ; that sort of thing. More recently, regulars had been invited to nominate their own choices for common consumption, and then to lead the subsequent discussion on what they had chosen.

 

Sometimes this worked very well. Sometimes you got this evening. Tonight’s choice had been Neal Stephenson’s _Cryptonomicon_. For all its undoubted virtues (now undergoing elucidation via PowerPoint and a collection of formidable-looking slides), this was a work somewhat sub-optimal for Book Club purposes because it was

 

a) more than nine hundred pages long (hard to fit in your pocket for a commute)

b) largely about computers and

c) prone to erupting into diagrams with little or no provocation (Rhys tended to think that the only book of literary aspirations that needed diagrams was the _Kama Sutra_ ).

 

The novel’s advocate was not really helping matters. Indeed, her obvious desire to share her enthusiasm was, if anything, making things worse. There was a kind of beleaguered chirpiness there which reminded Rhys of Open University documentaries from the 1970s, the ones presented in the small hours by blokes with flares. “Hey, kids! Science isn’t square! Science is COOL!” He also suspected that she had overestimated the extent of her audience’s familiarity with “On Computable Numbers with an Application to the _Entscheidungsproblem_ ”. Rhys had only the sketchiest idea what the _Entscheidungsproblem_ was, but it sounded painful. He made a mental note to Google it when he got home.

 

All this meant that a percentage of the audience was bored (which was excusable) and behaving like shits (which was not). Keith and Amy were continuing to do the whisper thing. Gloria was sighing theatrically at ever shorter intervals. One toss-pot was even sending a text message. Some people just seemed to drag their school-days around with them like a travelling circus, and set it up wherever they came to rest.

 

“… which leads us back to the world of today, where even someone as small as I am can work in I. T.” There was a pause. Rhys eventually worked out that this was a joke based on the passage in _Cryptonomicon_ about the statistically anomalous number of tall women at Bletchley Park. He had just decided to issue an obliging chuckle when the speaker hurried on to a slightly disappointed-sounding “Thank you,” and sat down, smiling expectantly and waiting for the discussion to start.

 

It didn’t.

 

Information – the most abundant resource of the twenty-first century. Rhys sometimes thought that he could almost feel it pressing down on the world, another set of seven seas. An oceanic pressure that had made some people’s minds a bit like deep sea fish: brightly coloured, odd to look at, and inclined to stop working if the pressure was suddenly removed.

 

Those who had wimped out of reading the book would not start, because they did not want to look stupid. Those who had read the book but not understood the lecture were in the same boat. Damien, who “facilitated” the Group for the University (not Rhys’ kind of guy – the sort of academic Marxist who had little taste for actual members of the proletariat), did not much like the woman who was giving the talk: she had brought him up sharply on a couple of historical points last time around. He therefore seemed content to inspect his shoes, while silence folded in on itself like treacle and the speaker’s face got redder and redder.

 

Rhys hardly ever said much at the Group, and had never before been the one to start the ball rolling. But he was suddenly, irrationally angry: angry about whispers and sighs and silences and “mmm”s and people ungrateful for the efforts of others and winged bloody horses that refused to fly. Which was the only real explanation for why he now heard himself saying:

 

“So, why do you think it’s plotted so differently from _Enigma_ , then?”

 

As openers for discussion went, it was not, perhaps, the greatest. But Rhys remembered quite a bit about the film of _Enigma_ (for reasons, if he was honest, not wholly unrelated to the fitness of Kate Winslet), and it turned out that a lot of the others did too. Pretty soon, comparisons were sprouting; the room had come to life once more; and the discussion leader was looking much happier.

 

As the session wound down, she came over to speak to him.

 

“Thanks so much for getting everything started there, Mr. Williams. I thought no one was going to say anything at all.”

 

“My pleasure…” Rhys tried, and failed, to remember her name. It sounded Japanese (he vaguely recollected) and for some reason it had reminded him of _The Bill_. The worst thing was that he suspected he might have met her somewhere before the Book Group; he had caught her staring at him owlishly just after he joined, a couple of times, as if he were familiar. “So, you work in I. T., then?”

 

“Kind of, yes. Data analysis, that sort of thing. What about you?”

 

“I’m a transport manager, me. Have to use computers a fair bit, mind. For my sins. There’s this ruddy software we’re running called ‘Pegasus’…”

 

“Poor you. Pegasus is dreadful.”

 

“So I’m told. Chap I spoke to said that Easytime was much better.”

 

“Oh, miles. In fact, there’s a great on-line article comparing the two.”

 

“There is? Could you tell me how to find it?”

 

“Better yet, I can show you.” She slipped her lap-top bag off her shoulder, and had just started unzipping it when her mobile phone rang. She made a face.

 

“Sorry; I have to take this. I’ll send you the link tonight.”

 

“Cheers; that would be fantastic.”

 

The small woman headed for the door, phone cradled to her ear (“… look, of course it will work. Those pets she left behind are from the same place as her, right? Ergo, same solution…”). It was only when he was himself preparing to leave that he remembered he had not given her his e-mail address.

 

 

3\. How the art of escaping from one’s troubles has developed, but not the art of knowing where to escape to

 

“You need a way to relieve the tension, big man. Unwind.”

 

Rhys looked quizzical over his beer-glass. “Getting bladdered down the local with a bunch of dead-beats doesn’t count, then?”

 

“Ha bloody ha,” Daf drained his own pint and set it down. “You finished with the crisps?”

 

“Knock yourself out.”

 

“Cheers.”

 

“Daf’s got a point, though, Rhys. Biggest problem of modern Britain, stress in the work-place. My mate Brian down the Council told me a tale…”

 

“Don’t be giving me that guff about great apes in the sewers that eat the turds again, Howsie.”

 

“God’s honest truth, that was. Brian heard it from a bloke in Sanitation.” Howsie leaned back in his chair. “Wonder what’s keeping Trev at the bar?”

 

Rhys was out with The Lads. It was a nice philosophical question when exactly Daf, Howsie, Trevor, Banana Boat, and the rest became The Lads – a collective mass, like the Eastern Bloc in the days of the old Soviet Union. The exact line-up did not define it. Banana Boat, for example, had cried off tonight because of his diabetes scare.

 

Perhaps it was a matter of function: the Lads were the social counterweight to the Girlfriend. But again, any suggestion of a Cold War (to continue the analogy) between them and Gwen would have been wide of the mark. Relations were mostly very amiable, even if Daf had got off on the wrong foot, having first met Gwen in uniform and assumed that Rhys was dating a stripper. (Daf’s game attempt at damage limitation – “Well, body like yours, love, easy mistake to make” - had not exactly helped.)

 

The thing about squeezing the world smaller, Rhys reflected, was that a lot of odd things ended up being pushed together. Compression could have some strange effects (he thought again about the deep sea fish). People who would not necessarily have known each other last millennium found their lives rubbing against each other. This made for some interesting mental gear-changes.

 

Take Howsie, for example. Peter Howes’ dad had been a miner in the eighties, and Howsie routinely referred to all police officers as “Fascist pigs”. Howsie also thought the world of Gwen, and had repeatedly ascribed her appearance in Rhys’ life to the intervention of his patron saint (“Dunno who, though. Which one looks after fat work-shy transport managers?”). These two facts nestled side by side, neither affecting the other – a passage from Scripture in a mediaeval manuscript, with a randy illumination next to it.

 

Rhys dragged his attention back to the conversation: “… So, according to Brian, this bunch of accountants and lawyers was going all _Fight Club_. Meeting up in warehouses, shit like that.”

 

Daf spluttered out a mouthful of Ready Salted. “You’re kidding.”

 

“Straight up. Because they were experiencing the modern crisis of masculinity. Or something.”

 

“‘The crisis of masculinity’, my rear end. More like the crisis of blokes-who-can’t-get-laid-and-have-no-mates-’cos-they’re-wankers . Dress it up all you like, that sort of thing is just creepy male bonding by another name.” Daf licked his finger and started running it around the inside of the crisp-packet for crumbs. “No, the _real_ challenge of the modern man is living with the knowledge that his girlfriend could kick his arse. Look at Rhys.”

 

“Gwen could not kick my arse.”

 

“I’ve seen her do it, big man. Remember last Christmas, when you were between her and the chocolate?”

 

“I let her win. And I was pissed. And she cheated.”

 

“I’ll believe you; thousands wouldn’t.” Daf clambered to his feet and headed towards the bar. “I’m going to see what’s keeping Trevor.”

 

Rhys contemplated observing that he was probably climbing out of the window in the Gents’ (enthusiasm for getting a round in not being one of Trev’s strong points). He decided against it. At least Trevor had not droned on about his dodgy mates this evening, which was a blessing. Rhys liked Trevor, had done since their schooldays, and could put up with his old friend’s besotted admiration of very minor villains. But he really wished that Trev could get it into his thick skull that there were things which a copper’s steady boyfriend would sooner not be told about mates of mates. Compression had its limits.

 

“How is Brian, then?” Rhys scanned the doorway to the bar in the hope of incoming beer. A short, sharp-featured man and a giggling blonde walked through it.

 

“Pretty fair. Got an afternoon off from the Council, today. Had to evacuate the building.”

 

“Why?”

 

Howsie shrugged. “God knows. Bomb scare, probably. Still, it’s an ill wind…” His tone changed as he saw Daf returning. “Shit, Daf, what’s up?”

 

Daf ran a hand through his hair. “I think someone just broke Trevor’s nose.”

 

Rhys had learned a number of things from dating a policewoman. Apart from the demolition of several urban myths concerning speed cameras, the main one had been that lawlessness tended not to be as interesting in real life as it sounded in principle. Fights in pubs were a case in point.

 

Perhaps somewhere out there you did get the whole gladiatorial, Y-chromosome-affirming _battle royal_ familiar from song and story and films with Vinnie Jones in them. Perhaps they were fun, if you knew how to handle yourself, could explain away burst knuckles and DIY facial surgery at work the next day, and were capable of significant physical exertion after a skin-full without just throwing up. But the basic problem, as so often in today’s world ( _Cryptonomicon_ flashed into Rhys’ mind again) was imperfect information. You had to know when it was kicking off; you had to know who was in and who was out; and you had to deal with the discourteous failure of gang-members with knives/nut-jobs with teeth/off-duty members of the SAS to wear badges clearly identifying them as such.

 

Otherwise, you tended to get situations like the one that confronted Rhys and Howsie when they got to the bar. Trevor was looking as nonchalant as a man with a sanguine Niagara issuing from his hooter reasonably could, which was “not very”. In the foreground hovered two or three blokes Rhys did not know, who might (or might not) have some degree of complicity in Trev’s current bid to incarnadine the carpet. Rhys ground to a halt, and pondered his next move.

 

“Er,” he said authoritatively. Behind him, Daf and Howsie positioned themselves in a fashion that subtly indicated their readiness to back Rhys’ play all the way, and also that the really big one with the beard was his. Rhys did not consider this altogether constructive.

 

“You lot his mates?” said the bearded man.

 

“Yeah,” Rhys replied in as carefully neutral a tone as he could manage on three pints.

 

“Thank God for that. Thought the poor sod was gonna have to sit here and bleed by himself, like.”

 

The atmosphere twanged with the unmistakeable vibe of profoundly relieved men trying not to disclose how profoundly relieved they were. Rhys turned to Trevor.

 

“What the bloody hell happened to you, then?”

 

“Bathtard wath githin’ me lip tho I…”

 

Rhys looked interrogatively at the barmaid.

 

“Some guy slopped a pint over him by mistake; he mouthed off at him; guy mouthed off back; he pushed him; guy broke his nose and scarpered.”

 

“You’ve got to do something about that temper of yours, Trev.”

 

“Futh you, Rhyth.”

 

“Does anyone have a handkerchief?”

 

The sharp-featured man and the blonde Rhys had seen earlier walked past the bar. At the street door, the man stopped, sighed, said: “Fuck. Wait a minute, gorgeous,” and headed back to the bar.

 

“Let me see that.”

 

Trevor looked suspicious as the man gripped his face and stared narrowly at his nose. “Tho, you a doctor, then?”

 

“No, I get off on groping bleeding men in pubs. What do you think?” The man frowned, and started rummaging through his pockets. “End to a perfect day, this is. Throw in the Krillitanes and the Fendahl, and we could have opened our own Harry Ramsden’s.”

 

“I’ve no idea wha’ the futh you’re thalking abouth…”

 

“I know. It sucks to be you on so many levels. There we are.” The man finished his work with anti-septic, splints, and bandages, and leaned back to admire his handiwork. “You’ll want to get a doctor who _isn’t_ about to shag ’til his head explodes to look at that in the morning. Have a nice life.”

 

 “Ath-hole,” muttered Trevor as the short man swaggered off. Rhys scratched his head. “OK, lads, that’s as much testosterone action as I can take for one night. Same time next week, then?”

 

 

Epilogue: How humans have repeatedly lost hope, and how new encounters, and a new pair of spectacles, revive them

 

Rhys was pleasantly surprised, on his arrival back at the flat, to discover that the lady who liked _Cryptonomicon_ had come up trumps. She must have got his e-mail address off Damien, or something. In any event, his Inbox sported a link which, when pursued, yielded an on-line article comparing Pegasus with Easytime. Even a desultory inspection confirmed the formidable stopping power of its Killer Facts.

 

The fall-out from Trev’s little bout of hand-to-nose had sobered Rhys considerably. He therefore set to work at once putting tomorrow’s proposal together. So intent was he at his task that he was taken by surprise when pale, freckled arms crept around his waist and a cool cheek rested against his.

 

“Bringing work home, gorgeous?”

 

“Mmm.” _And your work never leaves_. Sentences like that, unseen, unsaid, were too much the texture of their life now. The white field on the screen, between the flashes, that lets you see the cursor.

 

“Pegasus.” The twitch of her cheek against his told him that Gwen was Pondering. The big eyes would be oppressed by lowering brows; the red of the bitten bottom lip would shyly show through the gap in the front two teeth. She looked about twelve when she concentrated. “That’s the rubbish software you’re using? The one you told Gareth was a crock of shite?”

 

“That’s the one.” _And you’re feeling guilty about this morning, which is why you just showed that you remember what I said_. Rhys had not decided, perhaps never would, how he felt about it when Gwen applied her pro’s attention to detail as a People Person to their own lives. Was it faintly disturbing overkill, like guys who train for a month for the Parents’ Egg and Spoon Race at Sports Days? Or was it the biggest compliment it was in her power to pay?

 

“How was work?” he asked.

 

“Oh, you know. Another day saving the world.” He had expected her to pull away when he asked that. Part of him – everyone’s inner masochist, which has to chomp down on that aching tooth – was even looking forward to it.

 

She didn’t. They remained nestled together, companionably contemplating his I. T. proposal. A transport manager turned gastronome cheek-to-cheek with a housemaid’s granddaughter turned copper turned Special Ops. Odd things ended up close, in the contemporary cosmos. Thank God.

 

“Put up with me,” she kissed his cheek. “Even though I’m a bit crap, and don’t always see what I’ve got. And sometimes smell like a gherkin.”

 

“Bloody hell, you do as well. You been bathing in vinegar, or what?”

 

“Pest control. All sorted now.” She moved her chin to a more comfortable rest on his shoulder. “So, Mr. Williams, how has your day been?”

 

FINIS


End file.
